It seems the race between Apple and Samsung is finally coming neck and neck, but who will come out victorious? This technological race to the top of the Smartphone battle has always seemed in favor of Apple and their competitive iPhone design. Close behind, Samsung has consistently tried to keep up, if not surpass Apple altogether. Finally, with the successful and booming launch of its Samsung Galaxy III, the Korean company is now moving full speed ahead, but with a twist in their strategy.

Instead of contriving a completely new design, with the expected bigger, better, bolder tactics; Samsung is copying Apple by copying itself. Now that Samsung beholds a mass of nationwide supporters who have been enthralled by the Samsung III, they are going to give them just what they want: the exact design of the Samsung III but with a larger screen, advanced and useful features that individuals will love, whilst leaving room for innovative design to come in the near future. In a race this close, a tactic this risky would fare highly unsuccessful, but with the flood of bombarding hype, advertisement and articles, Samsung’s Galaxy S4 is projected to do exceedingly well.

In what's possibly the largest piece of tech news these days, consumers and developers alike have been reeling back at the results of the Apple vs. Samsung trial. The jury's verdict claims that Samsung, "...should have known or did know they were infringing," and Samsung must now pay over a billion dollars in damages. The patents in question alleged that Samsung copied the Apple iPhone's physical design and user interface.

The trial isn't exactly over yet, though. The jurors made their decision quite fast (a little too fast, even for legal experts) - for them to gloss over 100-pages of rules as to what they should be judging, only to come out hours later with a verdict, seemed a little sketchy. The jurors are defending their verdict, but some people have even pointed out flaws in their logic as far as calculating the damages owed. Samsung will likely use this in their appeal of the decision.

While Apple floats on cloud nine, with CEO Tim Cook issuing an internal memo regarding Samsung's thieving ways, the rest of the world has been left wondering what the next stage is. The courts will continue the case of Apple vs. Samsung, but where does this place other manufacturers such as HTC and Nokia? Large companies such as Google and Microsoft have even chimed in, with the former stating that, "Most of these [patent claims] don't relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Patent Office."

If you were planning on buying any Samsung cell phones in the near future, you might want to do it sooner rather than later - Apple is already trying to figure out which of the infringed products they'd liked banned.

Like his predecessor before him, Tim Cook took to the stage on Tuesday night, May 29th, for an inside look as the new head of Apple. The D10 Conference opened up with the classier-than-ever Jane Lynch, accompanied by a full gospel choir and a marching band.

Tim Cook appeared on-stage soon afterwards and sat down with hosts Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. In his interview, he spoke of the late Steve Jobs and what he learned. "You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else." This, as Cook says, is, "embedded in Apple," and that only the best will suffice. Cook also spoke of the difficulty of moving on from Jobs' passing. "It was absolutely the saddest day of my life when he passed away... I love museums, but I don't want to live in one."

Apple's direction has obviously changed since Jobs' departure. "We're going to double down on secrecy on products," says Cook, while also admitting that Apple will be transparent in other aspects regarding suppliers and environmental impact. When asked if Apple would ever have manufacturing plants in the U.S. (as opposed to their current locations in China), Cook replied, "I want there to be," adding that currently the engines and glass parts for the iPhone and iPad are built in Texas and Kentucky, respectively.

On the topic of the infamous patent wars, Cook claims that our system today is currently broken. "From our point of view, it is important for Apple not be the developer for the world. We just want other people to invent their own stuff." When countered that Apple themselves are suing other companies in the patent wars, Cook replied, "The vast majority of [lawsuits Apple receives] are on standards-essential patents... No one should be able to get an injunction off a standards-essential patent."

Apple's famous voice recognition program, Siri, received praise from Cook, who noted that Siri has a personality the adds to her likeability. "...there's more that it can do, and we have a lot of people working on this. And I think you will be really pleased with some of the things you'll see over the coming months on this."

To see the entire interview, check out D's interview with Tim Cook in the source link below.

Mark your calendars, folk: Apple's famous World Wide Developer's Conference has been announced for June 11 to 15. It'll be 5 days of Apple, Apple, aaaand... more Apple.

Previous years of WWDC have seen the announcement of new iPods, iPhones, and even iPads. It's sort of like Apple's own personal little CES tradeshow. What can we expect this year? Their press release seems to emphasize more on developers and platforms. "We have a great WWDC plannde this year and can't wait to share the latest news about iOS and OS X Mountain Lion with developers," said Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller.

The biggest news to emerge from today's Apple event is, of course, the unveiling of their latest iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 4S. This will come with quite a few new specs, particularly iOS 5. The iPhone 4S itself can be pre-ordered starting Oct 7th and will be available Oct. 14th. Meanwhile, iOS 5 will be released on Oct. 12th. So let's take a look at what we're dealing with, shall we?

The iPhone 4S will have the same retina display and back glass-casing as the iPhone 4, but comes with the brand new A5 chip. This chip is said to be twice as fast as its predecessor and has dual-core graphics. A new battery will provide 8 hours of talk-time, 6 hours of browsing (or 9 if done through WiFi), 10 hours of video and 40 hours of music, all done via the supposed 14.4 Mbps download speeds. And with AirPlay Mirroring, you can view some of these things on a bigger screen, either through a wired or wireless connection.

A new 8 megapixel camera is provided as well, bringing 60% better performance over the iPhone 4; this camera will also take in 73% more light, has 26% better white balance and an IR filter for more accurate colors. Plus, it's faster: a mere 1.1 seconds required to take one picture and only 0.5 seconds to take a second picture.

Perhaps the biggest new feature of the iPhone 4S/iOS 5 is Siri - originally a company that handled a voice recognition app, but was bought out by Apply in early 2010. Finally, Siri is bringing their expertise to the table by becoming Apple's (very intuitive) voice program. Quite a few examples were done at Apple's event today, with various questions/demands being asked: "What time is it in Paris", "Do I need to wear a raincoat today", "Find me a great Greek restaurant in Palo Alto", "Wake me up tomorrow at 6 AM", "Search Wikipedia for...". With each command, Siri either responded in kind or brought up the specific app that would help (such as a web browser with a wiki-page open).

Of course, the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 weren't the only news (granted, they were what everyone was waiting for) - the iPod Nano and iPod Touch both got a few touch-ups and price-alterations today. The iPod Nano, which now has a multi-touch display for app-swiping and 16 new clocks (including a Mickey Mouse clock!), will be available for $129 (8GB) or $149 (16 GB). Meanwhile, the iPod Touch, which now has iMessaging - bringing texts from your Apple devices to your iPod - will be for sale at $199 for 8GB, $299 for 32GB, or $399 for 64GB.

Also fresh off the Cupertino-grill is iTunes Match, the long-awaited music service that works with iTunes. This feature will scan your library, find the corresponding songs in iTunes for you and gives you the same benefits that iTunes-purchased-music would. This will be live at the end of the month.

Definitely an exciting day for Apple loyalists, and an exciting day for Sprint customers too - it was officially announced today at the event that Sprint will be getting the iPhone as well.

Oh, and as if all the news above wasn't enough, here's a last piece of joy for you: the iPhone 4S will now be available in white as well.